Sincerely
by Mirei E.C
Summary: ...There was a risk to this caper she had never taken before.  Carmen Sandiego was about to make the most daring and original move of her career.
1. Ravens at Dawn

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Sincerely  
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C a r m e n S a n d i e g o -- ravens at dawn

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The woman's countenance as she watched the sun crawl out of the sea's foamy depths was calm. Still. She might have been a statue, with marble skin and raven feathers for hair, adorned in a cloak of blood red rose petals. The eyes, typically lit with the lightning of her wit, were now dark and soft.

The thief was a mirror. Everyone who knew of her perceived her in a different way, because the people they really saw when they looked at her were themselves. And so the arrogant were outraged by her flamboyant style, and the kind were confused by the gentleness they observed. This fact did not go unnoticed by Carmen, and it was a secret sadness.

_There is no one who knows who I really am._

It was as much a question as it was a statement, but her only reply was the distant roar of waves attacking the cliff's bottom. It had been a long night full of carefully laid plans and a long day of delicate breaking-and-enterings. She would have been tired now, were she not so tense. Any minute now, they would be here.

An ironic smile passed fleetingly over ruby lips. They were surely even more tired than herself. If the last eighteen hours didn't go down in the annals of Acme as the agency's own Walpurgis Night, she would be extremely surprised.

Carmen usually preferred to set the tempo of her crimes to a more relaxed pace, to measure the beat with minutes or hours -- not seconds, or heartbeats. And she usually preferred to be on location for as many of the thefts in her master plans as possible. The tomb-like silence of a closed museum, the acidic shrillness of the police sirens, the carefully deposited riddle for her pursuers -- these were the quintessence of a masterfully executed crime; they were to her art as body and bouquet were to a connoisseur of fine wines.

But there was another reason why she liked to make personal appearances at her own robberies: the chance to encounter her favorite detectives. Her dialogues with them rarely went beyond three exchanges, though she would have welcomed the chance to say more. But Zack and Ivy were never far from her heels; they were smart, quick, and usually didn't care to stop and chat.

Zack was an unending source of amusement. He could amaze her, entertain her, and almost catch her. Somehow, he made his laid-back, typical teenage attitude and his colossal intellect coexist harmoniously. Carmen rather admired this about him; it was more than she had been able to manage. But what was most striking about the boy to Carmen was his comprehension of her Game. He intuitively understood that that's what her crimes were -- a game of cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek, and Trivial Pursuit. There was no malice when he chased after her, as there was with almost all of the other detectives.

His sister, Ivy, on the other hand, was something altogether different. Being pursued by her was always interesting. There was a well-hidden uncertainty about her, like a creature who isn't sure if it's the predator or the prey. Ivy had a burning desire to capture her and lock her up. She could feel it whenever the redhead was on the case, a smoldering, aching agitation that pained herself more than it would ever pain Carmen. It was a hurt so deep that it seemed personal, like an old grudge, and Carmen didn't know why. Despite this, whenever Ivy met her face-to-face, fear and doubt flickered in her evergreen eyes. Her hands twitched to clamp the cold metal cuffs over the master thief's wrists even as she was afraid to get close enough to do it. However, that fear, whatever its source, had not stopped her from doing her job -- Ivy had come closer to capturing Carmen Sandiego than anyone else. She thought she saw someone like herself in the girl. _Maybe that sight goes both ways, and she sees herself in me, and is afraid of what she might become._

Carmen could list their admirable and interesting qualities from now until the evening star shone, but in truth they were not her favorites simply because they were Acme's best...

A salty breeze meandered along the terrace. Somewhere a gull cried. _You're really doing this for them, you know._

The tall woman let out a hard, long breath, the closest Carmen Sandiego had come to sighing in a very long time. Although she had planned this caper down to every inconsequential detail, she had somehow managed to avoid directly confronting its raison d'etre.

She gripped the railing that ran along the cliff's edge, gazing into the swirling waters below with eyes that were every bit as blue. It was not in Carmen's nature to regret. Her philosophy for life was to carefully weigh all available options, contemplate all possible outcomes, then choose a path and never look back. Nor was it in her nature to second-guess herself. No, that was never a productive pastime; on the contrary, it was often a person's downfall. She had learned that long ago, in a past life, where she had carried a badge and played the other side of the game.

But for all her wisdom, it did not lessen the anxiety. There was a risk to this caper. A risk she had never taken before. Carmen Sandiego was about to make the most daring and original move of her career.

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A/N: Time for the requisite disclaimer. I do not own 'Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?' If I did, various episodes, especially of the first season, would have never seen the light of production. The Carmen Sandiego franchise belongs to Broderbund, DiC, and some other people too. No money is being made from this piece of writing. Please don't sue.


	2. Tempestuous Doldrums

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T h e C h i e f -- tempestuous doldrums  
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The months preceding _La Noche de Millón de Hurtos _(as Armando had dryly christened it) were a time of eerie tranquility, as far as the Chief was concerned. Browsing Crimenet, he had the distinct impression of a calm before a massive storm. His analytical algorithms had found nothing even slightly characteristic of a Carmen crime spree. As a matter of fact, Carmen might have told all the petty thugs and gangsters of the world to lie low, too -- there was very little criminal activity of any kind going on.

And so the Chief's duties as head of the world's most prestigious detective agency had turned from defending the world order to the ever more arduous task of keeping a large group of high-energy, highly bored youngsters from deteriorating into a scenario out of _Lord of the Flies_.

He had succeeded. Mostly. The lowest point of the three-month lull was when he had had to break up a fistfight between a couple of Uruguayan field agents that had apparently arisen over which one of them would get to investigate a local traffic violation.

But as aggravating as his bored detectives could be, they were cake in comparison to the Acme brass, who did not like to write checks to idle employees. After two months without a major case, they had decided something must have been wrong with the Chief's analytical subroutines, or with Crimenet itself. After all their diagnostic tests and system checks had come out normal there was nothing else for them to do, and that's when the real trouble started.

His first scent of danger came when he was commuting from the mainframe of Acme's Russian branch one weekday morning. Zipping through the fiber-optic cables, a particular file had caught his attention -- _pSkinner_ _to oBernarde_ ; Re: Detectives Evans and Evans.

Patrice Skinner was the regional manager of the San Francisco branch. The Chief only knew Otto Bernarde as a type A personality who had recently signed on with Acme in some executive capacity or other. So what could he have to say about Zack and Ivy to their boss? He tried to forget it, but it just didn't sit well with him. The siblings were not only his best agents, they were his best friends as well, and if someone had a problem with them, they had a problem with him. Over the following week, he encountered many e-mails between Skinner and Bernarde on Acme's network, and it only served to germinate his seed of nagging worry into a huge anxiety oak.

The oak sprouted an acorn the next Thursday.

- - - - - - - - -

The fluorescent lights hummed pleasantly; from an adjoining corridor a radio was playing KKSF. It was morning at the San Francisco branch. The Chief was doing some virtual paperwork, filing and organizing reports and the like. He could have done this anywhere, of course, but he tended to dwell around San Francisco -- historically, it was his home, and Zack and Ivy's home, besides. And then he noticed it. Several of Ivy and Zack's case reports had been accessed recently. He had already put two and two together by the time his trace request displayed, a few nanoseconds later. _Oh, no..._

The two detectives in question chose that exact moment to arrive. "Morning, Chief," Zackary Evans greeted, shrugging off a backpack filled with comic books and Game Boy cartridges -- the boy knew how to keep himself occupied. Ivy was only a step behind, a pen tucked behind her right ear and her eyes glued to the top page of a stack of printouts she carried. She also called out a greeting and took a seat at a computer terminal.

When the Chief didn't respond, both looked to the monitor where his head was currently residing, and when they saw the expression on his face they moved as one to him.

"What's the matter, Chief?" Ivy asked immediately.

He looked from one pair of bright eyes to the other, from verdure to azure. They were such earnest, good-hearted kids. And now he had to tell them this.

"Gumshoes, bad news, I think...." he began heavily, suddenly wishing he had thumbs to twiddle. He made himself rush onward when he realized they had stopped breathing in anticipation. "Last week I saw a bunch of emails about you being sent between two higher-ups at Acme, and today I found out they've been poking around in some of your more interesting case files."

Ivy blinked; Zack collapsed into a nearby chair. "Sheesh, Chief! I thought someone had died, or something!" The blonde boy let out a strangled chuckle.

"Hello!? Earth to Acme! Did you even hear a word I said!? You guys are in trouble with the execs!" Hoping that a visual aid would drive his point home, he vacated the screen and called up a list of the emails between Bernarde and Skinner.

"Well, aren't we popular all of a sudden," Zack cracked, but he had sobered.

"It gets better," the Chief huffed sardonically, unseen. He cleared the transcription of the emails and displayed the trace request he had just gotten off the server. There was a moment of profound silence as the detectives scrolled down the list of their case files Skinner and Bernarde had recently been reading, which was then broken by long, audible exhalations as they started to connect the code numbers and dates to various misadventures they'd had.

Ivy slowly lowered herself into a swivel chair next to her brother. "Oh, hell..."

"Couldn't have said it better."

Zack and Ivy were Acme's best detectives. However, the attempt to live ethically had at times caused them to walk a path that was not entirely straight and narrow, as defined by the law. Friendship was not the only thing the detectives and the Chief shared; among themselves they held the secret of a bond to a certain master thief, a bond which would look rather incriminating on paper. So they had fudged a little on certain case reports. Not major things, of course, just minor details. Their partnership with Carmen Sandiego in the pursuit of Dr. Maelstrom, for example, had turned into an "extended interrogation and closely guarded custodianship." Their restoration of Carmen as the head of V.I.L.E. had been nebulously described as "an unfortunate side effect to correcting the space-time continuum and bringing Mason Dixon to justice."

Even with the exaggerations and half-truths, though (or perhaps because of them), the reports would have looked specious at best to anyone looking too closely, simply because there were too many near misses and special circumstances. Reading down the substantial list of cases in which they had had to bend the rules in their dealings with Carmen Sandiego, the detectives suddenly realized how bad it looked.

"So who's this Bernarde dorfbud, anyway?" Zack asked despairingly, knowing full well that it didn't matter who he was.

Reappearing, this time on the room's enormous main screen, the Chief did a remarkably good approximation of a shrug, considering he had no shoulders. "He's a new paper pusher down at main headquarters. The name is Bernarde, Otto Bernarde," (phasing into a faintly British accent) "and apparently no one told him he has a license to _chill_, 'cause he's been stirring up a ruckus ever since he was hired."

Ivy frowned. "What kind of a 'ruckus'?"

"The 'it's time we made some improvements' kind. He thinks he could make the sun shine more efficiently." After discovering the emails, the Chief had done some homework on Bernarde; in the two weeks since he had signed on, he had already posted twenty-one notices to Acme's online bulletin, recommending changes in everything from coffee makers to personnel. The Chief had seen his type before: he was ambitious, probably hoped to claw his way to the top.

Ivy studied her hands, not looking up. "And I'll bet he figures that giving the axe to the weakest links in the chain would really make Acme run more efficiently," she surmised in a voice that was barely audible, but brimming with pain.

"If he's only accusing us of being incompetent we're lucky," Zack said flatly. "Look at the cases he's been studying, Ive. I think he's thinking more along the lines of treason."

The older girl visibly flinched, and the Chief furrowed his computer-rendered brow.

Although he had never mentioned it to his detectives, the managerial arms of Acme had been infused with a new tension ever since the Lee Jordan affair. When one star agent goes bad, it's deeply unfortunate; but when two do, people start sniffing for conspiracy. In the new atmosphere of suspicion, the Chief could believe that someone would leap to a wild conclusion, even about Zack and Ivy Evans.

The fact that there was a grain of truth in the situation, however small, didn't help things either.

The two siblings spent the day in idle busywork, and bid farewell to their Chief with preoccupied expressions at quitting time. The Chief puttered around the dim, empty control room, trying to come up with something, anything, he could do. Feeling hopeless, he finally switched himself into sleep mode around sunset.

An alarm. It had been such a long time since there had been any activity on Crimenet, it took the sleepy Chief a moment or so to realize what had awoken him. But when he finally did, he felt more awake than he had in months. Yes, it was unmistakable; she had literally left her calling card at the scene of the crime.

Carmen Sandiego was back in business.

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A/N: Just to clarify, no, Evans is not canon. No last name is ever given for Zack and Ivy in the show. I just made it up.


	3. Corpus Delicti

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Z a c k -- corpus delicti  
===========

He drank the last of the bittersweet, ultra-caffeinated liquid in one long draft and then crushed the cold can in his hand. After years of experience with C-5 travel, and the ins and outs therein, the ride had lost most of its ability to cure him of drowsiness. Even the rough landing in a tree on the lawn of the Vienna Naturhistorisches Museum had been simply par for the proverbial course.

The museum was a magnificent structure, the exterior resembling a Renaissance-era academy of some sort more than anything else. Inside, hundreds of priceless relics of the ancient past reposed. It was not the first time the young detective had been called there.

He stood not far from the clear case where the Venus of Willendorf had once been kept. A perfectly round hole had been cut out of the glass, and a black and red business card had been placed where the small stone statue was supposed to be.

"Nothing," Ivy announced as she strode back into the room, speaking of her conversation with the security guards. "All they've got is some fuzzy surveillance tape of Carmen breaking into the case. By the time they got down here, she was already long gone."

Zack frowned. That wasn't like Carmen. She usually gave the local law enforcement a nice little show before disappearing into thin air. That was part of the fun for her.

"Well, let's take a look at the clue," his sister continued, stifling a yawn, and gingerly removed the card from the compromised glass compartment.

The side that had been placed up contained only Carmen Sandiego's personal logo: her profile, in silhouette, against a red background. The reverse had nothing at all.

They stared at the business card as if waiting for it to explode, talk, fly away, dance a jig, _something_. But after several long moments, wherein nothing happened at all, they could almost hear the gears in their heads come to a grinding halt.

As their desperation mounted, the siblings found increasingly creative trials to perform on the little piece of paperboard. They tried shaking it vigorously, rubbing it, holding it up to the light, chilling it, and heating it up; but the business card stubbornly remained just that -- a normal business card, with no secrets to tell.

Zack obtained another can of soda from the nearby vending machine and slumped into a corner as Ivy continued her mental interrogation of the hapless card. This whole scenario was off, Zack observed. Carmen Sandiego stealing a priceless artifact without fanfare or drama, and then leaving behind only a meaningless calling card. He would have seriously suspected that Professor Bellum had been snooping around Carmen's laundry again, had he not known for a fact that she was currently working on her tenth masters degree in a maximum security prison.

Well, staring at Carmen's logo wasn't helping them solve this case. _Warp speed to 'nowhere,' Mr. Sulu._

Zack strolled over to Ivy, where she was frowning deeply at the card, a snarl rising in her throat. He snatched it away playfully and held it up to her eye level. "'I didn't do it, I tell ya! I want my lawyer!'" he squeaked in a high falsetto for the card.

Ivy glared daggers and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could utter a word both of their communicators beeped. "Come in, Chief," Ivy spoke, a hint of the annoyance intended for her brother seeping into her voice.

"Hot tip, gumshoes! Our good buddies Moe and Lars have just made off with a famous Japanese writing box in Tokyo!"

The kids exchanged befuddled glances, their respective mood swings immediately discarded. If there was anything about the card Carmen had left them that indicated a Japanese box, it must have been hidden in the molecular structure of its fibers.

"Uh, we're on it, Chief," the blonde boy replied, and opened up a C-5 corridor. With one last mental shrug, he and Ivy jumped into the sparkling blue void.

- - - - - - - - -

Several hours and many time zones later, Zack was ready to admit that he was beaten.

After their initial false start in Vienna, Carmen had resumed her usual courtesy of leaving real clues behind. However, it seemed that as soon as the detectives could solve them, Crimenet informed them that the item in question had already been stolen. As the night wore on and then turned to day, the rate at which world treasures were exchanged for cryptic clues only increased, until the boy felt that he was caught up in a mad dance with an ever-changing and ever-quickening beat.

Zack and Ivy had begged the Chief for some help, and gratefully received Tatyanna....and then Armando, and then Jasmine. Given that this was the first Carmen crime spree in months, word spread like a wildfire in Yellowstone. Before long, the siblings had all the help they could ever need -- and then some.

In theory, having an entire detective agency work as one to solve a caper should mean a swift victory. In reality, only so many detectives can huddle around a clue at once, and when said agency is comprised mostly of excited young adults who have been bored and idle for months, the equation equals _chaos_.

By mid afternoon, Acme's detectives had clearly segregated themselves into two camps. The more serious-minded agents (like Ivy) managed to stay focused on the case, although their morale was low; they could be recognized by their stumbling sleepwalk and the Styrofoam coffee cups they held in vice-like grips.

The other group of agents had lost their heads completely, and in their euphoric excitement had seemingly forgotten what they were so excited about in the first place. They were easily identifiable by the semi-circles they stood clustered in (usually in cumbersome, inconvenient places, like the main entrance of the Louvre) while gabbing and gossiping with each other, and the impromptu parties they tended to create.

A whole gaggle of them had virtually taken over the main control room of the San Francisco headquarters that evening. The Chief finally kicked them out when Detective Marco had tried to bring in a 24-pack of Mountain Dew and a family-size bag of Doritos.

Normally, Zack would have put himself with the latter camp, but he had a niggling, worrisome feeling in the pit of his stomach. _Something's not normal about this case_, his gut told him, and he could not ignore it.

Popping open his ninth can of Pepsi, he ducked into an empty conference room to give the matter some serious thought. He had always needed solitude to do any sort of deep thinking, even as a toddler. He chuckled privately to himself at the memory of his parents' looks of relief and anger at having finally found their towheaded son after an hour-long search, curled up in a broom closet contemplating the Pythagorean Theorem.

_Starting at around four a.m., Carmen has been pulling off robberies like they're going out of style. It's now almost ten p.m., and she's still going strong_. This, in and of itself, was not worrisome. It wouldn't be the first time she had pulled off an extreme crime spree, and it wouldn't be the last. But after thirty-six stolen items, there was still no discernible theme to her thefts. Modern paintings, ancient sculptures, famous busts, obscure historic landmarks....

_This looks suspiciously like a bit of early Christmas shopping_, Zack thought wryly. _I wonder if I could subtly let it slip to Carmen that I've had my eye on Deep Blue... _Zack rubbed his face wearily, deciding that the lack of sleep and super-doses of caffeine were definitely starting to get to him.

He reached into his coat pocket and produced the root of his unease. In the hustle and bustle, the little card had been promptly forgotten, but Zack had instinctively held on to it. He gazed at it intensely, his keen analytical prowess gleaming through bloodshot eyes. He had given up on it being a clue long before his sister had, but there was still something about it...something important.

Why would Carmen leave something behind at a crime scene for the express purpose of letting them know she had been there? If there was one thing Zack knew about the master thief, it was that she never felt the need to make anything perfectly clear. Besides, after years of chasing her around the globe, she certainly knew that they could decipher the signs of her handiwork without such an obvious hint. It was almost as if...

_Exactly. It's like she's sending a message to somebody else, not me and Ivy_.

The boy got to his feet agitatedly. He had the feeling he might be on to something, but it was impossible to convey such vague, intuitive knowings to his sister. For whatever reason, she did not always see what he saw. It frustrated him sometimes.

Determined to get back on the trail somehow, Zack quickly returned to the control room, where now only Ivy and the Chief remained. "Heya, Zack-meister! I thought you had gone to the Polynesia HQ with the others to shoot 'Acme Agents Gone Wild,'" the holographic head greeted, a touch of disapproval seeping into his voice at the last part.

"Naw! My lil' bro wouldn't abandon us like that," Ivy mock-admonished, tired but good-natured.

"Of course not. Unless it was spring break..." The blonde boy took a seat beside his sister at the terminal she was working at. She tousled his hair affectionately.

"So, did everyone really give up and leave?"

"Yes and no. The party-goers" (Ivy stressed the term and rolled her eyes) "left with Marco after the Chief kicked him out, and I have the feeling they're not exactly doing research. Armando and Jasmine are catching some much needed z's, and the others are working on clues back at their home bases."

Ivy had created a detailed list of all the stolen items and was studying them determinedly. Zack leaned back in his swivel chair and put his feet up. Despite his extreme fatigue, a slow smile crept across his face. He liked it like this; just his sis', the Chief, and him. They made an unbeatable team, and together they _would_ solve this case. The only uncertainty was how many more cases they would get to work on.

His smile withered and died. From the time he and Ivy had been awoken in the wee hours of the pre-dawn morning by an exuberant Chief up until now, he had been too caught up in the case to give much thought to the revelation that their jobs were in danger. In a small corner of his mind, he had rather welcomed the diversion, and had thrown himself into the clue-busting with more gusto than he might have otherwise. _If this is gonna be my last case, I might as well make it my best case, too,_ he thought, solemn and sardonic at the same time.

His mental monologue was interrupted by the static that suddenly danced on the computer monitor the siblings had been using. The Chief only had time to shout, "Gumshoes, someone's breaking into Acme's frequency--" before he was pushed off the screen entirely by Carmen Sandiego's smirking, half-obscured face.

"You look a little tired, detectives. Maybe you should get some rest," the master thief taunted in a dulcet tone.

Ivy looked like the devil herself, glaring at Carmen's image with red, puffy eyes, her lips pressed into a thin white line. The empty Styrofoam cup she had been holding was crushed into oblivion as she made a fist. _If looks could kill, we'd be inheriting V.I.L.E. right now,_ Zack thought wonderingly.

"Nah, we've just been having a nice little slumber party with Acme's finest," he deadpanned. Zack had his own style when it came to taunting.

The thief chuckled softly, barely audible. "I would expect that kind of cavalier attitude from you, Zack. In any case, I've had a wonderful time. But it only seems fair to give you two a little time to catch up...if you can. Hope to see you soon, kids." With a nod of farewell and an incongruously kind smile, she vacated the screen as swiftly as she had taken it over. In its place appeared a Pictionary-like puzzle and a timer counting down three minutes.

"Whoa! When she said a 'little time' she wasn't kidding!" Zack exclaimed, adrenaline rushing unmercifully to his already over-taxed system.

The screen displayed a non-descript illustration of a mountain, the plus sign, an abstracted spearhead-like shape, another plus sign, and a photograph of Michael Jordan.

Ivy fell heavily back into her chair, scowling. "Mountain plus...thingy...plus Michael Jordan. Perfect."

The younger boy ran his fingers through his floppy bangs, a nervous habit. "Okay, mountain...hill...Everest..."

His sister piped up, "What about that second thing? What's that supposed to be, a spear? Chief, infoscan that symbol!"

A cheerful chime sounded, and the insignia in question popped up on the control room's huge main screen. "That 'thing,' Ivy, happens to be the team logo of the New Orleans Saints. Y'know, football? Good thing there aren't any Louisiana sports fans in here..." the Chief joked.

Ivy snapped her fingers in an 'aha!' sort of way. "Now we're getting somewhere. So it's mountain, plus New Orleans Saints, plus Michael Jordan -- kinda sports themed, isn't it?"

"Maybe..." Zack trailed off doubtfully. "But what could a mountain, a football team, and a basketball player add up to? Besides, a simple puzzle like that is way too straight-forward for Carmen. I dunno, Ive. Maybe we're looking at the clues in too broad a sense." They had used up almost an entire minute.

"Care to elaborate?"

"Maybe the second 'thing' isn't supposed to mean the real New Orleans Saints, but just 'saints,' period."

"O-okay," Ivy stammered, panicked and clearly frustrated, but trying valiantly to follow her little brother's train of thought. "So, it's 'mountain,' plus 'saints,' plus...Jordan. Or Michael.......Oh!"

The siblings both saw it at the same time. "Mount Saint Michael."

"Better known as Mont Saint Michel!"

"B-I-N-G-O, and Bingo was his name-oh!" the Chief celebrated, sing-song. "You guys are taking a round-trip to France!" He opened a C-5 corridor for them and decorated his computer-generated image with a party hat. "Hey, bring me back a nice souvenir; how about a Carmen Sandiego?!"

Zack and Ivy leaped enthusiastically into the bright blue light.

As he sped through the darkness of the C-5 corridor, Zack realized that Carmen's last clue had created new mysteries, and not solved any old ones. She had delivered it to them personally, a detail which seemed to indicate that she wanted them to come and play. Carmen had set up heists for the sole purpose of matching wits with the two detectives many times before, but the way she had gone about this spree up until now seemed downright antithetical to that intention. And there was still the matter of _why_ Carmen had wanted the thirty-six items she had stolen in the first place. If Mont Saint Michel was the thread that connected them all, it must have been the carbon monofilament kind, because he certainly couldn't see it. And it didn't explain the business card either...

_Oh, well_, the young detective thought dismissively. They would just have to wait and see.

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A/N: Devoted fans may have noticed that Mont Saint Michel features prominently in the episode "Split Up," and may be wondering why no one mentions it in this fic. The reason is simple: I goofed. Actually, when I began writing this story, I hadn't seen that episode in a long time, and did not remember that Mont Saint Michel was in it. By the time I did see Split Up again, I was almost finished with the fic, and couldn't find a way to incorporate that episode into it gracefully.


	4. Unspoken Soliloquy

  
  
================  
I v y -- unspoken soliloquy  
================

The C-5 had a reputation for getting people within the geographic border of the city they were trying to reach, but nowhere near anywhere useful. Touching down in the middle of the tourism district of Mont Saint Michel, Ivy thought to herself that no reputation had ever been more deserved.  
  
Here it was just coming on sunrise, and the streets were gray and empty of everything except the eerie sort of half-light that always precedes the rising of the sun. Zack swung his keen gaze up and down the cobblestone-lined boulevard they had landed on. "Unfortunately, Carmen forgot to tell us where in Mont Saint Michel she's staying. Wanna check the tourist traps?" the younger boy joked.  
  
Ivy exhaled frustratedly. "Yeah, let's start with the Holiday Inn."  
  
"Actually, I've got a pretty good idea of where Carmen would go," Zack said. "One of Europe's architectural wonders is here -- La Merveille. It's an ancient cathedral. It's been written about, painted....Any self-respecting master thief would make a beeline for it."  
  
"Yeah, but..." It wasn't usual for Carmen to be so non-specific in her clues. There had to be more. "Wait a minute. When she sent us the last clue, didn't she say 'cavalier?'"  
  
"Yeah. She also said the words 'it' and 'some.' What's your point?"  
  
"I think I remember reading something....there's a famous house here. It was owned by the wife of a famous medieval knight, Bertrand du Guesclin. He was a chevalier."  
  
"You've lost me, Ive."  
  
She made a small, exasperated noise. "Another term for a chevalier is a cavalier!"  
  
"But La Merveille is _the_ place to go in Mont Saint Michel," he argued.  
  
"Then we'll just have to split up," she declared, swiftly losing her patience. Carmen could have been getting away at that very moment.  
  
"Uh, well there's a problem. We don't know how to get to either Du Guesclin's pad or La Merveille."  
  
Ivy smiled faintly, looking at something behind and above Zack. He turned, and saw a cluster of large billboard signs indicating directions to many tourist attractions...including La Merveille and Bertrand du Guesclin's house.  
  
"If you're right breakfast's on me," Zack called out doubtfully into the cold morning air, as he and Ivy parted and sped off to their respective locations.

- - - - - - - -

The house of du Guesclin had been converted into a kind of museum. It was fully furnished in the style of the era it was built in, with certain areas roped off or cased in to draw the visitor's eye. But as it was closed now, the large structure was unnervingly still and quiet.  
  
Ivy prowled around the dark rooms cautiously, waiting for someone or -thing to jump out at her, as though she were in a carnival fun house. And in a sense, she was. The young girl had learned to expect everything when tracking Carmen Sandiego. It wouldn't have been unusual for the master thief to leave some big, hulking henchmen behind to menace the detectives. 'Hired goons,' Ivy had always called the non-descript, blue jumpsuit-clad beefcakes in her head.  
  
She ducked into a shadowy corner to give her racing pulse a little time to calm. Straining her ears for the faintest creak or click, she wondered how many more cases she would get to work.  
  
The sheer enormity of the realization that this could be the last closed museum she ever wandered, the last clue she ever unraveled, knocked the breath from her lungs. The dark news that the Chief had dropped on them yesterday had never been far off her mind during this case, like a mean little parrot sitting on her shoulder, constantly pecking at her. When he had alerted them of Carmen's first theft, around four in the morning, she had not been to sleep.  
  
Ivy loved being a detective. More than anything else in the whole world. Wanting to be an Acme detective was her first memory of life, and being discouraged and reprimanded for this desire was her second. But nothing could keep her away from Acme. Not even the crushing irony of the fact that the person who had inspired her dreams was now on the top of Acme's most wanted list.  
  
And on top of it all, she and Zack were going to be dismissed because they were suspected of having sympathies with V.I.L.E. Putting Carmen away had been Ivy's only real goal in life for the past decade, and while she could not deny that she had at times cast that goal aside for a greater good, it had never been an easy or guiltless decision.  
  
And now she regretted those decisions so much, she was physically weakened by the weight of it. _After we rescued her from Professor Bellum, after we helped her keep her good name as the "honest crook" when Maelstrom would have tarnished it, after all we've done for her..._  
  
It didn't work. That was the long and short of it. _After all we've done for her, she's still a thief and now I've sacrificed my own dream for a lost cause.  
_  
Ivy crept out of the shadow she had been sheltering in and continued on toward the north wing. In some unfamiliar corner of her heart she had implicitly believed that showing leniency and mercy for the master thief would earn her something in return. Ivy swallowed hard. As illogical as it was, she still clung to the hope that one day Carmen Sandiego would return to Acme, would turn back into the detective that had made her want to be one too.  
  
And maybe that was Ivy's deepest, darkest secret, the thing Otto Bernarde was snooping around in old case reports trying to find. Even though Ivy was Acme's most focused, most dedicated agent, there was something she wanted more than to bring Carmen Sandiego to justice, and that was to bring her back to the right side of the law. The Chief would find a way, too, if Carmen wanted it so. Somehow he could. Although they had never seriously discussed it, never talked about it at all really, she and Zack both understood how deeply he still cared about his former agent. The wounds Carmen had inflicted when she left Acme were few and deep, and the scars would probably never completely heal.  
  
The young detective kicked angrily at a buckle in the carpet underfoot, not liking the turn her mental monologue was taking.  
  
Something gleamed in the pale morning light to Ivy's left. A slow grin spread across her face as she recognized it. An Ogata Korin lacquer box. A definite anachronism in the house of a 14th century chevalier, especially considering it was supposed to be residing in the Tokyo National Museum. Ivy perkily tapped a button on her wristwatch communicator, and chirped, "How does Denny's sound?"  
  
The cheer-enhancing effect of Zack's groan was only slightly diminished by the static of the comm-unit's tiny speaker. "I can't believe you were right. I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?"  
  
"Oh, I wouldn't say that; never is a very long time. Call for some back-up. Over and out."  
  
Continuing down the north wing corridor, Ivy found all thirty-six of the stolen items, each displayed formally on marble pedestals of various sizes. Ivy paused a beat to admire an original printing of the 1737 _Poor Richard's Almanack_. She closed her eyes briefly; the weight and size of the old tome in her hands were the same as another old book, one which was reposing eternally in a rented storage unit in downtown San Francisco.  
  
She unceremoniously dropped the almanac back onto its pedestal, suddenly repulsed by it. Ivy shook her head as if to clear it and moved onward, a little faster. It had been awhile since she had thought about the scrapbook she had made as a little girl.  
  
She couldn't remember exactly what had been her four-year-old self's motivation for collecting newspaper and magazine articles about her favorite detective. Maybe she had just wanted something to hold on to, something to hope for. Maybe she had wanted to prove to her father that she could indeed read. The girl smiled faintly, remembering. In any case, at some point she had gotten her hands on a blank book, and had pasted her collection into it, both to organize it and hide it from her mother, who would have probably burned the scraps of paper if she had known how much they meant to Ivy. Becoming an Acme detective was not on the short to-do list Vanessa Evans had written up for her daughter.  
  
Ivy ran a brisk hand through her fiery hair, grinding her teeth. She had been unfocused and off her game ever since she stepped foot in the old house. She might as well have gone trotting off to La Merveille with Zack, for all the time she had wasted. _Get a grip, Ivy. You can feel sorry for yourself when you get back home.  
_  
The north wing corridor ended in a grand set of double doors; they were wide open, and beyond them stretched a wide, grassy terrace. The flat, well-kept lawn ended abruptly at a cliff's edge. Carmen Sandiego stood there, watching the sea.  
  
Options and possibilities raced through her brain. She had the element of surprise -- something she was bound to lose if she waited too long. But she would need Zack if something went wrong. Could she afford to wait until he came? Ivy imagined herself explaining her case report to Otto Bernarde. 'Having sighted the suspect at a vulnerable moment, I then proceeded to _wait_ because my little brother wasn't there, sir.' That helped the detective make up her mind considerably. _I'm going for it_, she thought with grim certainty.  
  
Carmen had chosen a good spot to do some whale watching, strategically speaking, Ivy realized as she crept onto the terrace. There was nothing to hide behind or in; the terrace was completely devoid of shrubs, or trees, or anything else. It was impossible to make a covert strike. _As soon as she detects my presence Carmen's going to pull out a jet pack, or signal for a speedboat, or something_, Ivy thought grumpily. But there was nothing to do but creep forward, step by anxious step.  
  
Ivy felt the familiar butterflies in her stomach and silently cursed herself. She was as nervous as if she were going to ask Carmen for an autograph, rather than put her under arrest. There was another reason she would have preferred to wait for her brother: she suddenly realized that she did not want to confront Carmen alone.  
  
Ten years had been enough time to change the world's greatest detective into the world's greatest thief, and a disheartened baby girl into a spirited teenager who was as independent as most people twice her age. Ten years had been enough time to turn ardent admiration into a bitter grudge. But when Ivy met her adversary face to face, she felt the years melt away like April snow, and she was just a child again. A child who did not want to de-throne her hero.  
  
She was close now. The edge of the terrace where the master thief stood was only several yards away. If not for the roar of the waves and the soft, dew-drenched grass underfoot she would have surely heard Ivy by now. The girl was now left with the puzzle of what to do next. If her spirits were higher she might have called out tauntingly to her nemesis, but as it was she was simply too drained to even try to affect esprit or vigor. On the other hand, an unannounced flying tackle seemed banal to the point of being unprofessional.  
  
But then Carmen Sandiego spoke, and solved the problem for her.  
  
"Welcome, Ivy, and good morning." The tall woman turned around to face her, wearing a self-assured smile, and Ivy suddenly had the dreadful feeling that Carmen had been aware of her approach ever since she dropped out of the C-5 corridor.  
  
She peered over the young detective's shoulder with a look of amused curiosity. "But where's Zack?"  
  
"We had a slight...difference of opinion," she replied stiffly, hoping she sounded less sleepy than she felt.  
  
"Ah, La Merveille, right?" the raven-haired thief intuited, then laughed softly when Ivy's expression affirmed her. "Yes, you always did have a gift for perceiving subtleties which your brother does not possess, at least in the capacity of solving my clues."  
  
Carmen leaned against the railing along the cliff edge, as casual as though she were chatting with an old friend. "I've always been especially fond of Mont Saint Michel. I have a lot of history here..."  
  
Ivy almost drowned under a wave of frustration. How could Carmen act like this? And more to the point, how was _she_ supposed to react? It was as if they were supposed to be pals until the detectives got within lunging distance, at which time they were just cops and robbers again. Carmen didn't have the right to act so familiar. _To pretend we're not enemies_. The unexpected punch of melancholy that last thought delivered spurred the detective to stay focused.  
  
"What's your game this time, Carmen?" she demanded, even harsher than she had intended to sound. "Why the extended shopping spree?"  
  
Her eyes glinted like sea glass from the shadow of her fedora, and she raised a gloved finger to rest above her crimson lips, clearly bemused. "Why have you been so pensive during this case, detective?"  
  
Ivy did not flatter herself to think that she understood Carmen's thought processes at all, but even she could see that the gears in her unfathomable mind were turning -- there was a point to the question. Perhaps it was to throw her off guard, because it certainly did. Carmen had been noticeably absent during her own crime spree, showing up more on grainy surveillance tape than in person. How she had been able to glean anything of her spirit or mood during this case was totally beyond Ivy.  
  
The young detective faltered, opened her mouth to reply, but couldn't find anything to say. Carmen smiled again, but there was nothing taunting in her demeanor. "You know, I've always wondered why you bear such a deep grudge against me," the tall woman added lightly, as if not expecting an answer, and turned once again to the sea.  
  
It seemed to Ivy that she had fallen into Alice's wonderland, and that she couldn't have had a more unsettling dialogue with the Cheshire cat himself. When the thief said no more, she finally found her tongue. "Y-you're...a criminal," she managed to choke out in her own defense. She sounded weary and disingenuous even to her own ears.  
  
Suddenly Ivy was very aware of the fact that she hadn't slept in two days. Adrenaline could keep her eyes open, but it could not erase her exhaustion. She just didn't have the strength to deal with this scenario, to have this conversation right now. Her legs started to tremble violently, and Ivy feared her knees would buckle under her. _Hurry up, Zack!_ She felt her body tumble to the ground; she simply had no more strength to hold herself up, a marionette whose strings had been cut. A muffled cry escaped her throat as she fell. It was a tiny sound, but Carmen must have heard it. In an instant, she was there; the tall woman gently hoisted the young girl by her upper arms back to her feet, maternal concern slightly distorting her flawless face.  
  
For an instant, the environs of Mont Saint Michel flickered and faded, before peeling away altogether. Beneath was a scene from a distant time. There was a little girl, her titian hair tied back in pigtails; she was with her family in a cold, alpine place, and her breath became a misty vapor as soon as it left her lips. Someone had shod her small feet with bladed shoes and put her out on the ice. She had never skated before. Many, many times she lost her balance and fell on the hard ice. An angry shadow blocked out the sky; it was the child's mother. She watched her efforts with an increasingly annoyed expression. At last, her eyes stinging with tears, the little girl reached out towards her mother and begged for some help. The woman slapped her hands away and glided off into the distance.  
  
"Ivy." The panic that laced Carmen's tone brought the detective back to the current page of her life.  
  
She straightened as best she could and tried to remain in control of her face, to not look as shaken as she felt. "I'm okay," she assured, as much to herself as to Carmen.  
  
She suddenly wanted very badly to thank her adversary, even though she knew she shouldn't. Mothers were supposed to be kind and wise; thieves were supposed to be hard and cruel. And heroes weren't supposed to become villains. Ivy didn't understand any of it, but she didn't want it to be recorded on the pages of her life that, when someone had finally helped her to stand, she had been ungrateful. She looked up at the raven-haired thief, and would have probably uttered her thanks, but her expression was so kind and sad that even the crying shorebirds seemed to be hushed.  
  
"It seems I've pushed you too hard this case. My apologies, child." Carmen softly stroked Ivy's flaming hair, and once again turned her back to her, setting her gaze loose to roam the surrounding waters. Ivy shook her head dumbly, now thoroughly and completely at a loss for words. The silence didn't last, however. "Well," the woman began, a hint of the taunting tone she was accustomed to returning, "I can't deny that you've got me cornered this time, detective."  
  
_Excuse me?_ Ivy thought incredulously.  
  
"Hold it right there, Carmen!"  
  
The detective and the thief turned in unison to see Zack striding quickly across the terrace. The blonde boy looked to his sister for some kind of cue as to what he had missed, but her tired eyes conveyed nothing.  
  
"Ah, Zack, it's about time you showed up," Carmen called out brightly, all traces of her momentary somberness gone, and Ivy thought to herself that although the thief always wore red, she had some decidedly chameleonic abilities.  
  
"I always try to be fashionably late. So what's with the eighteen-hour shopping spree?" he queried, almost mirroring his sister's question, though in a considerably lighter tone and manner.  
  
Carmen shrugged slightly. "What better way to let you detectives know your vacation is over?"  
  
"A postcard would have sufficed."  
  
"Perhaps. But this way is so much more fun." The woman smiled slyly.  
  
Ivy saw a doubt scamper across Zack's face, and exchanged a subtle glance with him. They were both thinking the same thing: Carmen wore her fatigue well, but she was as tired as they were. The master criminal was known to steal things on a lark, but there had been a hard edge to her work this past caper. There was a purpose to this crime spree, and the fact that it was not readily apparent and that Carmen seemed unwilling to divulge it, even now at the end, was disturbing.  
  
"Unfortunately, I didn't count on you two being so on the ball. You've caught me without a trick up my sleeve," the thief admitted, as graceful in defeat as in victory.  
  
"You're never without a trick up your sleeve," Zack corrected skeptically, now serious and analytical.  
  
Ivy glanced rapidly from her brother to her adversary, feeling that she should be taking part in the repartee, but her brain felt slow and soggy; it was all she could do just to mentally compute the words they were speaking.  
  
"I'm flattered, Zack. But the fact is this case is over, and I'm still here." As if on cue, the cacophony of myriad police sirens drifted into audibility. The sacred quietude of the morning shattered and fell around them. There would be more than just cops, Ivy knew; there would be CIAs, and secret services from several nations, as well as a truckload of hyperactive Acme agents.  
  
Ivy looked to Carmen, and instantly understood.  
  
Later on, when discussing the case with her brother, she would learn all the reasons why she was right. She would even receive some high praise from him for her 'brilliant deduction,' which she would deny and shrug off, saying that she did nothing clever, only followed her gut feeling. Later on, Zack would laboriously describe his own hunches and extrapolations: how the business card at the first location felt forced and directed at a third party (the Acme executives, as it turned out), and how the last clue that led them to Mont Saint Michel was set up to deliberately create a false sense of urgency that would ensure they set off quickly and alone. But at that moment, all she knew was the meaning of the slow, apprehensive gleam in Carmen's one visible eye as she gazed in the direction of the nearing onslaught.  
  
"You...you're turning yourself in," Ivy muttered, swaying slightly where she stood.  
  
Carmen and Zack both snapped their heads around to look at her in astonishment. The younger boy's jaw nearly hit the ground, but Ivy just continued to pin the thief with her hard stare. Carmen had been anticipating the police cars' approach for a long time, had waited patiently for them and the ride she was going to take.  
  
The sound of the sirens was loud and coarse now; they must have been at the front of du Guesclin's mansion. But still Ivy stared motionlessly, unblinkingly at her greatest adversary, silently demanding an explanation. The tall woman's expression of consternation faded into mild surprise, and then a ghost of a smile. Ivy finally broke the gaze, closed her eyes and shook her head in dismay. _No, not like this..._  
  
Footsteps, clamorous and quick; they were in the house now, searching every room. "You don't have much time," the thief prompted softly.  
  
"You know," Zack breathed, the pieces finally falling into place for him. "You know about Bernarde and-"  
  
"And it won't help you to be caught chatting with me," Carmen interrupted.  
  
Time seemed to stop for a moment as they all weighed the immensity of the transaction taking place. The irony was exquisite: the criminal had set herself up in order to prove that the detectives were not in league with her, but in so doing she was forever cementing the bond between them. Zack took out his handcuffs, and Carmen extended her wrists as docilely as a lamb.  
  
Suddenly the police were upon them, a stampede of black and blue and rapid French. Zack handled the requisite conversation, being fluent in the language, and Ivy was grateful for the luxury of being silent. And then they were marching as one group back through the mansion, the cops trying to maintain an air of professionalism despite their excitement, the detectives trying to look happy, and Carmen Sandiego standing tall and proud through it all. Then they were out of the house of du Guesclin, and Zack and Ivy broke away from the entourage and hung back in a shadow by the main entrance. They knew their fellow Acme detectives would be among the throng assembled at the large cluster of police cars that were parked in front of the mansion's lawn, and didn't feel like receiving kudos just then.  
  
"So why that whole charade then?" Ivy questioned after a moment, still gazing distantly at the retreating crowd.  
  
"The eighteen hour shopping spree? Well, what would you expect her to do? Carmen can't help but do everything she does in a big way. If you were Carmen, would you rather be caught after your longest, wildest series of heists ever, or in a botched Seven-Eleven hold up?"  
  
The older girl silently nodded her understanding, watching the scarlet figure who was now getting into a black-and-white police car. _It's all wrong_, Ivy thought dizzily. Just like the lady in her dim, icy memory, Carmen Sandiego was supposed to always glide away at the end, as graceful as the shadow of a gull on the water.  
  
--------------  
  
A/N: The whole premise of Ivy being a Carmen fan when she was little and keeping a scrapbook of her adventures is not my idea at all. It was something the good folks of the Carmen Discussion Forum thought up a long time ago. I'm a big supporter of this theory, and I couldn't help but incorporate it into my fic. 


	5. Ravens at Dusk

  
  
=====================  
C a r m e n S a n d i e g o -- ravens at dusk  
=====================

The thief had known even before she started planning her latest crime spree that there was a risk, a danger, involved that she had never taken before. It had come to pass, and she could only wait to find out what the lasting repercussions would be.  
  
Carmen had never been one to shy away from risks when it came to herself, but she avoided putting other people in jeopardy at all costs. Even though she had executed her most grandiose series of heists ever for the sake of the two detectives' careers, she knew she had gambled their young hearts in the process. If they were able to see through her ruse, to perceive that the end of the chase had been orchestrated even before its beginning, where would that leave them? How were they supposed to deal with the fact that they owed their livelihoods to their adversary? And how could they engage in future chases after such an epiphany?  
  
She had risked nothing more and nothing less than the entire equilibrium of their strained and clandestine bond. In any relationship, there were certain gestures, both positive and negative, that couldn't be ignored or taken back. They could never again pretend to be strangers when they crossed paths in a closed museum.  
  
Well, they _had_ seen through her ruse. Carmen would have thought that Zack would be the one to put it together if anyone, but it had been Ivy. Or rather, Ivy had been the one to call her out. The girl had looked so tired and defeated at the end of the case, Carmen wondered if she really knew the words coming out of her own mouth.  
  
The woman's heart ached to think of the young girl. Of the two siblings, Ivy would surely suffer the most. Zack would be confused, but he would probably learn to adjust his mental image of her so that he could continue to play her game. Ivy, on the other hand, would have no way of dealing with her nemesis' sacrifice for her own benefit, except to try to forget.  
  
Carmen was always monitoring Acme's network. When the Chief had told the detectives about the emails with their names as the subject heading, she had overheard the entire conversation. The Chief had only been able to speculate, but she actually read the content of the emails and knew that his deductions were only too correct. There had been only one thing to do; she had started blueprinting the crime spree immediately.  
  
The real tragedy of the whole affair was that the detectives had put themselves on the line so many times for her sake. In her own mind, Carmen wasn't so much giving them a gift as merely paying them back. But it was different when she was the one violating the age-old code of enmity between cops and robbers. Maybe it shouldn't have been, but it was. The ties that bound them together were tenuous and tangled.  
  
After Zackary and Ivy Evans' 'brilliant capture of Carmen Sandiego' (as the New York Times chose to put it), the emails between Otto Bernarde and Patrice Skinner changed in tone considerably. A few more unwelcome, unsolicited suggestions for internal improvement, and he was let go under rather vague circumstances. Carmen waited two weeks afterwards before breaking out of the ultra-maximum security prison that had been built especially for her, and no one had connected the two events to each other.  
  
And now she stood watching a roseate sunset from the balcony of her secret base, in much the same posture of deep reflection that she had assumed while waiting for the detectives at Mont Saint Michel. The thief tented her long fingers momentarily, her crystalline gaze turning inward, then walked back into the compound. Inside there was an innocent looking laptop computer, abnormal only because of the mass of wires and ports attached to it. She had hacked into the Pentagon with it, but for now she had her sights on a more routine invasion...  
  
"Good evening, Chief."  
  
"Carmen! What are you doing on Acme's frequency this time?!" he demanded, his eyes bulging with suspicion.  
  
"Glad to see you, too," she quipped lightly. "Don't overheat your circuits - I'm not here to cause any trouble. This is purely a social visit." The holographic head immediately calmed. Carmen's word was still trustworthy; it was one of the few things about her that hadn't changed over the years.  
  
"How did Acme take my capture and defeat?" she inquired, smiling softly.  
  
"How did the people in Times Square take the last minutes of 1999?" he asked rhetorically, in a long-suffering tone. Carmen laughed. "It was a three-ring circus here until you finally broke out of that suped up Sing Sing. Your escape seems to have brought my agents back down to Earth, thank goodness for that."  
  
"And Zack and Ivy?"  
  
The Chief sobered. "They're glad their place at Acme is secure." A pregnant pause. "They've taken it very differently. Zack tries to act casual about the whole thing, but he's more subdued than usual. I know he thinks about you and what you did for him often. And Ivy, well..." He sighed, and his whole countenance was transformed by his uncharacteristic melancholy. "Ivy tries to see the world in black and white, and she's not sure how to process your magnanimous gesture. She's talked to me about it a lot; I like to think that's a good sign..."  
  
"What has she said?" Carmen asked earnestly. She knew she was putting the Chief in the uncomfortable position of betraying an unspoken confidence, but she was almost desperate to know.  
  
He fidgeted for a moment. "She feels grateful to a person she has spent an entire career trying to lock away. She's confused. She told me that, when the police took you away, she was unprepared for how...sad...she felt. She was _sad_ to see you go. She thought the day you went to jail would be a monumental occasion for her, whatever the circumstances, but instead she truly regretted seeing you reduced to the status of a common crook." The Chief gazed keenly at Carmen's image, watching for her reaction.  
  
She was unable to speak. She wondered how much of what the Chief had said came directly from Ivy and how much was his own interpretation of the detective's feelings, but it didn't really matter; she trusted his judgment implicitly.  
  
"Carmen, thank you for helping them." Something very human and real gleamed through his holographic eyes. "They would thank you, too, if they could."  
  
"They are the ones who helped me. This was just my way of returning the favor," she intoned hoarsely, shaking her head.  
  
The two were silent for a long time, wholly absorbed by their own thoughts. At last, Carmen stirred.  
  
"Good night, Chief."  
  
"Hm? Oh, yes, good night, Carmen."  
  
The thief disengaged from Acme's network and turned off the computer. The Chief only confirmed what she had already intuitively understood. The detectives could not, and would not, simply forget what had taken place between them. Neither could she.  
  
In the chilly coastal dawn of Mont Saint Michel, Carmen Sandiego had reflected that there was no one who knew who she really was. Now she realized that there was no _one_, but there were two. Two. Zack and Ivy both knew things about her, held fragments of her being, and between them there was a complete and true picture. Perhaps that's why it was so much fun to play against them.  
  
The game might never be the same again, now that both sides were so mutually indebted to each other. Or maybe the game would be better than it had ever been before. Maybe the ties were stronger than they seemed. There was only one way to find out.

- - - - - - - -

One fine evening, a piece of registered mail arrived at the detectives' old Victorian. Zack tore open the thick envelope to find a postcard within, with a very familiar emblem on one side and a note written in an elegant hand on the other. He excitedly called his sister and they read it together, their eyes practically dancing across the card. When they were finished they exchanged a secretive smile.  
  
Their bond with the master thief was by no means straightforward or easy. Something changed with the last case, but they wouldn't know what that was until they saw the raven-haired woman again. The future never seemed so uncertain. But at that moment, they were both just very surprised at how eager they were to go back to work.  
  
_Dear detectives,  
Zack, this time I've taken your advice and used a postcard. I hope you two have enjoyed your vacation. Let's play a real game this time. I look forward to seeing you again.  
  
Sincerely,  
Carmen Sandiego _

**-Finis-**


End file.
